The expression of non-actual motion in Swedish, French and Thai

AbstractDynamic descriptions of static spatial situations, such as the road goes through the forest have attracted a lot of attention across different semantic theories. Analyses in terms of fictive motion and subjective motion have proposed that such expressions are strongly motivated by universal cognitive and conceptual factors. I present theoretical arguments for the conflation of several different motivations in the literature. Instead of a single general motivation, three distinct experiential motivations are presented under the term non-actual motion. These experiential motivations are used to design an elicitation tool for investigating non-actual motion cross-linguistically. Elicited descriptions from speakers of Swedish, French and Thai suggest that such descriptions are conventionalized in all three languages, which supports the universal character of non-actual motion across languages. However, in expressing non-actual motion, the language-specific resources for expressing actual motion are used.

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The Role of Motion Verbs in Conveying Path-Related Information in English and Slovene Fictive Motion Expressions

ELOPE English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries ◽

10.4312/elope.15.2.63-78 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 15 (2) ◽

pp. 63-78

Author(s):

Frančiška Lipovšek

Keyword(s):

Point Of View ◽

Motion Verbs ◽

Motion Events ◽

The Road ◽

Related Information ◽

Actual Motion ◽

Fictive Motion

The paper presents a study on fictive motion (FM) uses of motion verbs in English and slovene from the point of view of conveying path-related information. An FM expression describes a static scene in terms of motion (e.g. The road weaves through a range of hills). Motion verbs in FM uses do not describe actual motion events, but may refer to certain properties of the path by virtue of their meanings. English and slovene FM expressions exhibit different behaviours in this respect. Many English verbs display meaning components that can be metonymically mapped onto the properties of the path. The meanings of slovene verbs are less specific, so that such properties need to be expressed verb-externally in slovene FM expressions.

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Embodied intersubjectivity, sedimentation and non-actual motion expressions

Nordic Journal of Linguistics ◽

10.1017/s0332586516000123 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 39 (2) ◽

pp. 185-208 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Jordan Zlatev ◽

Johan Blomberg

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Linguistics ◽

Mental Simulation ◽

The Body ◽

Linguistic Meaning ◽

The Road ◽

Actual Motion ◽

Linguistic Conventions ◽

The Relationship ◽

Embodied Intersubjectivity

As part of a long-term project investigating the relevance of phenomenology for (cognitive) linguistics we analyse two central, interrelated concepts:embodied intersubjectivity(intercorporeality) andsedimentation. With respect to the first, we spell out a number of different intercorporeal structures, emanating at the most fundamental level from the dualLeibkörpernature of the body. Further, we demonstrate that sedimentation is more than a ‘geological metaphor’ as meaning is intrinsically layered in human experience. This is first illustrated by reviewing evidence from ontogenetic semiotic development within the framework of the Mimesis Hierarchy model (Zlatev 2013). Then, we focus on the linguistic construal of situations lacking actual motion in dynamic terms through expressions of non-actual motion such asThe road goes through the forestandHe was uplifted by her smile. We review studies of non-actual motion in Swedish, English, French, Bulgarian and Thai extending and re-formulating previous analyses. We argue that the present analysis is more adequate than cognitive linguistic explanations in terms of ‘mental simulation’ and ‘conceptual metaphor’. We conclude by pointing out how our phenomenological investigation can help resolve a number of classical dilemmas in semantics: Is language primarily grounded in the body or in society? Is the ontology of linguistic meaning mental or social? What is the relationship between pre-linguistic experiences and linguistic conventions?

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From the glass through the nose and the mouth

Terminology ◽

10.1075/term.23.1.03cab ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 66-88 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Rosario Caballero

Keyword(s):

El Paso ◽

Sensory Experience ◽

Motion Verbs ◽

Content Type ◽

The Road ◽

Sensory Experiences ◽

Fictive Motion

Motion verbs are often used to predicate entities such as roads, paths and the like as in “The road snakes to the port of Shakespeare Bay before climbing over the last hill to Picton” or “La carretera serpentea unos 30 kilómetros entre las montañas de la cordillera Nipe”. The verbs foreground the path configuration and dynamic rendering of things that cannot move – a phenomenon known as fictive motion (Langacker 1987; Talmy 1996). However, motion verbs are also frequent components in specialized contexts such as wine discourse, where they communicate different sensory experience of wines as in “Exotic, exuding red berry aromas and flavors that sneak up on you rather than hit you over the head”, “Bright and focused, offering delicious flavors that glide smoothly through the silky finish”, or “En boca tiene una magnifica entrada, aunque en el paso sobresalen rasgos vegetales y se precipita hacia un final en el que predominan notas tostadas y amargas”. Using two corpora of tasting notes written in English and in Spanish, I examine the motion expressions used to communicate the sensory experiences of the wines and explore the motivations for their use in descriptions of wines’ aromas, flavours and mouthfeel. Three questions are at the heart of this study. They are (i) what types of scenarios are described through motion expressions, (ii) what sensory perceptions do they describe, and (iii) what may the differences between English and Spanish be?

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Gestural modality and addressee perspective influence how we reason about time

Cognitive Linguistics ◽

10.1515/cog-2015-0137 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 28 (1) ◽

pp. 45-76 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Tasha N. Lewis ◽

Elise Stickles

Keyword(s):

Lateral Motion ◽

Face To Face ◽

Actual Motion ◽

Growing Body ◽

Discourse Interpretation ◽

Gesture Comprehension ◽

Fictive Motion ◽

Metaphor Use

AbstractA growing body of literature has established that spatiotemporal metaphoric reasoning processes can be affected by the active experience of motion (such as actual motion, fictive motion, and abstract motion). In this study, the effects of metaphoric gestures on spatiotemporal metaphor use and the effects of addressee perspective on comprehension of these gestures are investigated. Participants were asked an ambiguous question that yields different responses depending on which metaphor variant is used. This question was asked with simultaneously produced metaphoric gestures depicting either sagittal or lateral motion and presented to participants either in shared perspective (side by side) or opposing (face to face) perspective. Findings suggest that not only does gesture influence metaphoric reasoning in discourse interpretation, but that addressees reliably interpret gestures from their own perspective, even when it is not shared with the speaker. Furthermore, conversational bystanders similarly adopt the perspective of the addressee in gesture comprehension.

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Does the road go up the mountain? Fictive motion between linguistic conventions and cognitive motivations

Cognitive Processing ◽

10.1007/s10339-015-0723-8 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 16 (S1) ◽

pp. 221-225 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Dejan Stosic ◽

Benjamin Fagard ◽

Laure Sarda ◽

Camille Colin

Keyword(s):

The Road ◽

Linguistic Conventions ◽

Fictive Motion ◽

Cognitive Motivations

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On Variations in the Chandler Frequency

International Astronomical Union Colloquium ◽

10.1017/s0252921100026877 ◽

1972 ◽

Vol 1 ◽

pp. 77-85

Author(s):

H.J.M. Abraham ◽

J.N. Boots

Keyword(s):

Axis Of Rotation ◽

The Earth ◽

Actual Motion ◽

Chandler Frequency

This paper suggests that some of the reported changes in the Chandler frequency are associated with inelastic changes in the Earth. There has been controversy as to how much of the apparent secular polar drift is due to actual motion of the axis of rotation within the Earth, and how much it is merely the reflection of movements by certain observatories. Therefore, when more southern data are available it will be interesting to see whether similar results are obtained.

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Seeking to uncover biology's chemical roots

Emerging Topics in Life Sciences ◽

10.1042/etls20190012 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (5) ◽

pp. 435-443 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Addy Pross

Keyword(s):

Environmental Changes ◽

Biological Systems ◽

Significant Development ◽

The Road ◽

Physical Chemical ◽

Systems Chemistry ◽

Biological World ◽

Inanimate Matter ◽

The Origin Of Life ◽

Opening Up

Despite the considerable advances in molecular biology over the past several decades, the nature of the physical–chemical process by which inanimate matter become transformed into simplest life remains elusive. In this review, we describe recent advances in a relatively new area of chemistry, systems chemistry, which attempts to uncover the physical–chemical principles underlying that remarkable transformation. A significant development has been the discovery that within the space of chemical potentiality there exists a largely unexplored kinetic domain which could be termed dynamic kinetic chemistry. Our analysis suggests that all biological systems and associated sub-systems belong to this distinct domain, thereby facilitating the placement of biological systems within a coherent physical/chemical framework. That discovery offers new insights into the origin of life process, as well as opening the door toward the preparation of active materials able to self-heal, adapt to environmental changes, even communicate, mimicking what transpires routinely in the biological world. The road to simplest proto-life appears to be opening up.

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